


flicking the back of your ear with my finger

by baliset



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: 12x100, Bog Body Henry Marshallow, Constrained Writing, Other, Plant Monster Stevenson Monstera, Vignettes, incineration related descriptions, makeouts and smoking, non-maincord safe swearing, vague body horror about monsters and living dead people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29520837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baliset/pseuds/baliset
Summary: They nudge Ron in their seats at Battin’ Island and point at a jersey below that reads MONSTERA. “Any relation?”“Sibling.” Ron’s voice is crushed gravel, an avalanche in his chest.He introduces Stevie and Hank, stiffly, on the field after the Steaks lose. Hank waves; Stevie won’t make eye contact.(or: a monster love story in 1200 words.)
Relationships: Henry Marshallow/Stevenson Monstera
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	flicking the back of your ear with my finger

**Author's Note:**

> henry/hank is a botany student who died in a swamp and came out wrong! stevie is a forest cryptid! they both use they/it pronouns.
> 
> the 12x100 format is by [lewis atillo](https://pigeonize.medium.com/), brought to blaseball by crookedsaint's fic [let me let you down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29314074)!

1.

Henry Marshallow is dead before they ever touch a pitcher’s mound or a blaseball field. They’re dead when they claw their way out of the swamp, skin torn open at the cheek, mud under their nails. They’re dead when they find themself gulping down sticky Florida air, standing in the ashes of some guy they never knew, a ball in their hand. They’re dead when they finish the game, and when they meet the Garages. They’re dead when they go home at night, and when they wake up in the morning. 

Doesn’t stop Hank from feeling any less alive, though.

2.

Stevenson Monstera is born from the earth, dragging itself through moss and dirt to a treeline breached by Dallas sun, cursed to forever be the most interesting thing in a room. Even slouched, Stevie stands too tall for its own good, multi-jointed limbs folding in over each other, fingers brushing their ankles and trailing along the ground. 

It tries to make itself small, lurking in corners at cookouts, barely speaking. Nothing helps except their batter’s helmet, a hard barrier between Stevie and the rest of the world. Stevie wears it off the field, sometimes. Then Sebastian gives it a mask.

3.

The mood in the Big Garage after a season that killed four people is dark and stifling. Hank flies out to New York with Ron to watch playoff games and leave the mourning behind - no disrespect to the other dead, of course, but Hank is twice-over tired of it.

They nudge Ron in their seats at Battin’ Island and point at a jersey below that reads MONSTERA. “Any relation?”

“Sibling.” Ron’s voice is crushed gravel, an avalanche in his chest.

He introduces Stevie and Hank, stiffly, on the field after the Steaks lose. Hank waves; Stevie won’t make eye contact.

  
  


4.

Hank lets the noise and light of the city drape over it like a familiar blanket, dresses in colors that clash, flits in and out of clubs and bars. It stumbles into a venue like a black box theater sometime past midnight and find a performer on the stage with a keyboard and a voice like rocks in a blender and the rubber mask of a B-movie monster. It’s good music. You can dance to it. Hank presses so close to the stage that their ribs creak, looks at the pale seam of skin under the singer’s mask, and wonders.

5.

Stevie is untangling their hair from the sweaty tangle the mask makes it when a voice from behind them says “Monster Steve, huh.”

The bobby pin in Stevie’s fingers clatters to the ground. They jump and hiss a curse under their breath, shoulders hunched like they’re preparing for a blow. The voice behind them laughs. Stevie turns to find the new Garage - Henry or Hank or something - leaning against the alley wall, smoking.

“What,” Stevie squeaks.

“I think it’s good,” Hank says. “It’s clever. Walk you back to your hotel?”

Something in Stevie - call it residual monstralization - makes them nod.

6.

Nothing happens. Not that night. 

It’s the not-happening that makes Stevie realize it might have wanted something, the not-happening that makes it steal glances at Hank in the stands the next day and think about the way Hank smiles so easily even with a torn face. Stevie doesn’t know if it wants Hank’s attention for itself or if it wants to crawl inside Hank’s skin and live there, to learn what it feels like to be so bright and confident and comfortable being looked at. 

Hank catches its eye and winks. Stevie turns away, burning cheeks cradled by its helmet. 

7.

The thought that Ron is going to kill them plays like a mantra in Hank’s head as they knock on the hotel room door. It plays in their head, still, when they kiss Stevie and Stevie kisses them back, and Hank’s thumbs find Stevie’s sharp hipbones and press.

“Ron is gonna kill me,” Hank says aloud, later, yelling it from the shower through a curtain of drenched hair. It’s long now, longer than it was the first time around. They haven’t cut it since coming out of the swamp. They don’t want to.

“You’re going to _tell Ron_?” Stevie yelps.

8.

The Steaks are out of the playoffs in four games. Stevie flies back to Seattle with Ron and Hank, glad for the convenient excuse of family, and spends the off-season with the Garages.

Hank holds Stevie’s hand at playoff parties, lugs Stevie’s keyboard around the city to open mics, and doesn’t complain when Stevie’s overwhelmed and has to lie under the bed alone. Stevie braids flowers into Hank’s hair, wears its tacky neon sweatshirts, and writes songs that are jokes for just them, two monsters in orbit. 

It’s nice. Comfortable. The next season starts, and it feels like a loss.

9.

“How’s Monster Steve?” Hank asks. Stevie is painting its nails on an airport floor - they’ve both got a layover in Detroit due to snow.

“Good,” Stevie says, with a whisper of a laugh. “I’ve been writing - well, I’ll email it to you when I get back to Dallas.”

“Can’t wait,” Hank says. “I wish we’d hurry the fuck up and play each other again soon. I miss you.”

“Miss you too,” Stevie murmurs. They can feel themself retreating back into their shell without Hank there to drag them out of it. They wonder if Hank notices. “Pink or green glitter?”

10.

A different airport, a shorter layover. Hank only has Stevie long enough to kiss them up against a wall in a nook near the bathrooms, hands hooked in the coarse denim of Stevie’s jacket.

“I made you something,” Stevie says.

Hank feels a cold hand on its wrist, then something else. A bracelet. Plastic neon beads that clash sharply with its pale skin, smooth and appealing to the touch, the same kind Hank wears to clubs at home.

“It glows in the dark,” Stevie mumbles. They sound embarrassed.

“I love it,” Hank says, and kisses them again, harder this time.

11.

Hank knows something is wrong when they step off the field. It’s a feeling in the gut. Ron is standing in the dugout looking at his phone, and turns it off when Hank cranes their neck to see what’s on the screen. The other Garages are filtering back towards the locker rooms, but Hank stays, knocking their cleats against the concrete wall to get the mud out.

“What’s up?” they ask, finally, coaxing their voice towards casual. The plastic beads on their wrist clatter as they take their hair down.

“Stevie,” Ron says. He doesn’t need to say anything else.

12.

Stevie is dead in the fourth inning before the Tacos are finished at the plate. It’s dead before it gets a second at-bat to redeem the first strikeout, and it’s dead before it can do anything at shortstop but stand there, waiting to field a ball. It’s dead when its hair is set alight like a leaf held to a match, and it’s dead when its skin goes up like dry paper, and it’s dead when it hits the cold, black marble floor of the Trench hard enough to bruise.

It still feels alive, though. Maybe Hank taught it that.

**Author's Note:**

> i would love to explain myself or this ship but i really can't at all. i just think they're neat.
> 
> title is from we own the night by dance gavin dance. you can find me on twitter @corpserevivers or in the crabitat discord server, and comments and are as always appreciated!


End file.
